At what point should you cut out the affiliate company?

Working with merchants directly

[arran]

A particular merchant is working fairly well on one of my sites. I can see from their order numbers that I account for approximately 10% of their total sales and have done for the last 12 months. As it's a small niche so this only comes to around 15 sales a day (average basket size £120). I'm getting 8% but I know my affiliate company is making another 2-3% on top of that. I realise these numbers are small compared to others but I was just wondering at what point people contact merchants directly. On the positive side, I could probably get higher commission. On the negative, I suppose I would have to trust their tracking. Thoughts? Experiences?

Thanks,
arran.

[Beagle]

Check out the TOS of the affiliate network to see if there are limitations on this. I had a good merchant drop out of LinkShare and because I was an affiliate through LinkShare it seems I have to wait a year (?I'd have to check the length of time again?) until I can have another affiliate relationship with the merchant. I have no idea how strictly this is enforced, or whether that might depend partly on the merchant. There's another company I'd like to use that's also in LinkShare, and I'm thinking of contacting them independently to begin with.